THE RELATIONS OF THE ENGINEERING

SCHOOLS TO POLYTECHNIC
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

BY DUGALD C. JACKSON,

Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.

The impulses which caused the settlers of New England to found schools and colleges simultaneously with clearing the land for their dwellings seem to have universally affected the pioneers of this country, and the establishment of schools has played a notable part in their policy. The hardy frontiersman has seldom blazed a trail which schools have not promptly followed.

This regard for school education is not singular with the American people but it has been singularly universal with them, and a comprehensive educational system has resulted which reaches even to the remote byways of the country. An educational system which meets the needs of the country, however, must be something more than a mere comprehensive school system in touch with the people. It must not only offer education in general, but it must also offer those special educations which are necessary for the fullest development of each branch of human endeavor and service. In satisfaction of this condition, the great variety of professional schools have been established,-divinity schools, law schools, medical schools, schools for the professional engineer,

and on the other hand, trades schools of various characters. In the latter respect, however, this nation has been at fault. Some trades schools have been established and maintained, and manual training has come to be highly regarded,-perhaps here and there too highly regarded in the high schools though insufficiently established in the grade schools; but the development of trades schools has been insufficient to the country's need, and foremen's schools are still almost unknown.

A wise enactment looking towards the establishment of these schools throughout the nation was passed by the National Congress during the period of the Civil War, whereby each state of the United States was allotted an acreage from the national public lands in proportion to its national representation, the proceeds to be applied more particularly to instruction in agriculture and the mechanic arts, without excluding other subjects of study. This wise enactment, born in the midst of civil strife, has been the foundation of many of the great state universities which make a notable feature of various of our western states. The United States Congress of recent years has added continuing appropriations of money for the same purposes, but more particularly with the design of supporting agricultural research. These appropriations have been used with wisdom and with great advantage to the nation and its people; but, as far as mechanic arts are concerned, the term has been construed liberally and the work of the colleges using these appropriations has been largely in the grade of professional engineering work or

trending in that direction. The demand for university-trained engineers has been marvelous and the "land-grant" appropriations have been insufficient to support more than one educational effort in this line, and in many states they have been insufficient to support even one fully, so that it has been excusable in the past for the state colleges and universities to limit their activities. The diversion of fine private bequests from their apparently intended use for the foundation of trades and foremen's schools, to a support of attempted professional engineering schools, alongside of engineering schools already in existence, seems to me not so excusable.

In agriculture, the situation has been different. The individual farmer as a rule is unable to carry on extended and expensive experiments for the benefit of himself and his fellows, and the agricultural schools have turned their attention toward helping the individual farmers or dairymen by teaching them how best to carry on their trades. Some of our best schools of agriculture are what, in industrial lines, would be called foremen's schools, that is, they teach of the particular craft involved and the way in which the craftsmanship may be most advantageously invoked and applied by a master craftsman in everyday employment. These agricultural schools also support courses of instruction in scientific agriculture which are of university grade, and they maintain extensive and well-manned departments of research which have returned uncounted advantages for the appropriations expended.

The agricultural schools have thus undertaken to

cover a triple field: The field of the master craftsman, the field of the scientific or professional agriculturalist, and the field of agricultural research; and, in the main, they are occupying each of the fields well. This is in great contrast to the situation of industrial education, in which schools for master craftsmen,-i. e., foremen's schools,-are so few as to be almost unknown.

The lead of the agricultural schools arises partially from a lack of farsighted altruism amongst the agricultural people, who clamor for the expenditure of public funds to advance agricultural education in all its branches, and especially those branches that come close home to the individual farmers and dairymen, but are selfishly unwilling to see public funds expended in those lines which appear immediately to aid the manufacturers, who, allege the farmers, are able to help themselves. This line of argument springs from the idea that the prosperity of the country rests upon its agricultural resources: and any one who has lived, as I have, for years amongst the people of the fertile plains of the Central West and Northwest cannot help but be convinced that this line of argument contains much of truth. However, it is false in its premises, because it fails to remember the unassailable fact that the prosperity of the agricultural interests and the concurrent contentment of the agricultural population are dependent in this country to an extended degree on the intelligence and prosperity of the industrial population. The interests of each,-the agricultural and industrial populations of this country,-are so bound

up together, that only by friendly co-operation in most things, including the educational interests, can the highest welfare of either be conserved. It seems to me that it is of almost as much interest to the mechanic or mill-foreman that the farmer shall be taught how best to perform his labor to bring forth the largest and best matured crops as it is to the farmer himself. And conversely, it seems to me that it is almost equally to the interest of the farmer and of the industrial foreman that the latter shall be afforded the best available training for the practice of his vocation.

Now, let us turn to consider the relative importance of proper education.

"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in."

What Abraham Lincoln thus said in 1832 is even more applicable to the conditions of our times. Only the education to be found in the elementary common schools was probably then in the mind of the speaker, and the extended school education, of a vocational nature, and especially of a professional nature, were apparently not within the purview of his experience; but these were not outside of his horizon, for he would have an extension of that education which leads to morality, sobriety, enterprise and industry, as is shown by another sentence from the same address:

"For my part, I desire to see the time when education-and by its means, morality, sobriety, enter